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Devils In The Details: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of 'Diablo III'

Blizzard’s ‘Diablo III’ is a guilty pleasure of a game, but not without problems.

Diablo III is the big controversial title of May 2012, and I’ve played through the first half of Act III, so I’ll have more to say about the game once I’ve finished. The below review only covers up to that point.

So far I’ve played on Normal difficulty so that I could get a good feel for as much of the game as possible. I’m playing on PC, though the game is available on both PC and Mac. I’ve played as a female Wizard, though I typically choose more tank-like classes.

I’ll play a different class on Nightmare or Inferno later and report back with an expanded review. Also, Player-vs-Player is still in development, so once that’s out I’ll give it a shot and let you all know how it works.

Disclosures aside, let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of Diablo III. I can’t say whether this game is right for everyone, but over all I’ve had fun with it, which is exactly the point of a game like this.

The Good

Blizzard’s Diablo III was a long time in the making. It’s been over a decade since Diablo II came out, and many fans of the series have been disappointed in what they perceive as both a lack of progress in the third game and, a little paradoxically, too many changes from the original.

But I’ve been enjoying Diablo III a great deal for what it is: a guilty pleasure of a game. I see Diablo as a game you can simply dip in and out of whenever you want. Hop in with a couple other players, slaughter hordes of monsters, and hop back out again. There’s very little fluff weighing the game down, and not much of a story to get involved with. What story there is clips along at a nice pace, and bits of lore you pick up and listen to as you play add nice details around the edges.

Graphically, many people complained that the game looked as though it was crafted using 2005 technology, but I disagree there as well. The painted 3-dimensional look is really lovely in its own way. Instead of a flat dungeon crawler, there are layers upon layers. Fighting along the ramparts of a fortress, you can see monsters down below and up above. They come not just from all sides, but from the sky, from clifftops and gorges. The juxtaposition of both 2D crawling, and 3D graphics makes the game more fluid and entertaining.

Diablo III is all about being a powerful hero, wielding massive power and doing massive damage to endless waves of enemies. There isn’t a ton of strategy beyond picking which awesome powers to wield. If you’re looking for tactical combat, look elsewhere. It’s not a smart game, really, but it is fun.

My Wizard, SzaSza, with her snazzy new staff

Some fans of the older games also complained about a lack of a skill tree. Again, I disagree. The skills you unlock each have a series of runes that are also unlocked as you progress. New skills and new runes are not necessarily more powerful than older skills and runes. Instead, they do a variety of things. One rune may change the cool down time of a power, another may increase its damage, still another may increase the distance or width of that power. You have to choose which rune and which skill you’ll place in each slot. This creates something of a skill web rather than a skill tree and I like how it works quite a bit.

All told, the graphics, the frenetic combat, and the powers are all pretty pitch perfect as far as I’m concerned. Diablo III works for what it is: a melodrama, where everything, including the story and the villains is larger than life, and where slaughtering demons and monsters is a gaudy parade of powers and lights.

Beyond that, I like the music and the sound-effects seem fine. Nicely produced all the way around if nothing particularly special. The cinematics, while blessedly rare, are gorgeous. The angelic fight in particular is really lovely animation.

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yeah i tend to avoid games with that kind of drm. my experience with diablo 3 guest pass was kick, play for 5 minutes, kick, play for 5 minutes kept it on my computer for over a week before i got rid of it. im glad i didnt go out and buy it and waited for user reviews which are not always reliable but from what i heard from friends and fans and hard core diablo 2 players this game is over all pretty disappointing. whats the point in paying 59.99 for a game that ur server load determines if i can play the game solo or not. been doing alot of tochlight 2 lately really hooked cant wait for release and have it preorder and it feels more like a sequel to diablo 2 since several people from blizzard north moved and founder runic when blizzard fired them since they were making world of warcraft and didnt care about the diablo fans until now when they wanna make moneys.

Yeah, I think I’m going to be skipping this one. Which is kind of a shame, since from everything I’ve heard here and elsewhere, it sounds like my kind of game. But the glitches, the always-online DRM, and the price-point really don’t make it worthwhile. Not to mention the lack of longevity. Sure, Blizzard’s servers aren’t going anywhere any time soon, but there’s a difference between ‘soon’ and ‘years and years down the line’. Right now, if I want to, I can still pop my copy of Baldur’s Gate 2 into my computer, install, and start playing, and that game’s what? Like a decade old? Online games only stick around for however long they’re profitable. Since Diablo III doesn’t have a monthly subscription fee (yet), that probably means ‘not long’ in this case.

I understand the thinking behind online DRM, but I don’t believe it’ll do them any favours. Pirates love nothing more than cracking games which are obviously trying to thwart them. It’s kind of like a game in and of itself for some, what with the challenge and difficulty and accomplishment and all; why else would some of them do it? So something like this is about as misguided as bringing the carnival to Gotham City to try and take everyone’s minds off of the recent spike in crime rates. I’m sure it’ll take them longer to rig up a system that provides the missing AI cues for enemies and whatnot, but they’ll do it, and then they’ll have what a large percentage of players likely want – offline single-player.

And they’ll be giving it out for free, which just seems like a raw deal for everyone except the thieves. (Who are also apparently making out pretty well with this ‘real money for in-game items’ sales gig, too). But time will tell, I guess.

Yeah, I think I’m going to be skipping this one. Which is kind of a shame, since from everything I’ve heard here and elsewhere, it sounds like my kind of game. But the glitches, the always-online DRM, and the price-point really don’t make it worthwhile. Not to mention the lack of longevity. Sure, Blizzard’s servers aren’t going anywhere any time soon, but there’s a difference between ‘soon’ and ‘years and years down the line’. Right now, if I want to, I can still pop my copy of Baldur’s Gate 2 into my computer, install, and start playing, and that game’s what? Like a decade old? Online games only stick around for however long they’re profitable. Since Diablo III doesn’t have a monthly subscription fee (yet), that probably means ‘not long’ in this case.

I understand the thinking behind online DRM, but I don’t believe it’ll do them any favours. Pirates love nothing more than cracking games which are obviously trying to thwart them. It’s kind of like a game in and of itself for some, what with the challenge and difficulty and accomplishment and all. So something like this is about as misguided as bringing the carnival to Gotham City to try and take everyone’s minds off of the recent spike in crime rates. I’m sure it’ll take them longer to rig up a system that provides the missing AI cues for enemies and whatnot, but they’ll do it, and then they’ll have what a large percentage of players likely want – offline single-player.

And they’ll be giving it out for free, which just seems like a raw deal for everyone except the thieves. (Who are also apparently making out pretty well with this ‘real money for in-game items’ sales gig, too). But time will tell, I guess.

Erik, have you tried Torchlight 2? The beta weekend was just a few days ago, and I have to say I’m really impressed with it. As a $20 title, I felt it was a lot more polished and complete than Diablo 3 was, which had server issues during the beta as well.

I would like to see a full comparison and your opinion on the two games when put side-to-side, seeing as Torchlight 2 was developed by the original Blizzard North designers of Diablo. In my opinion, Diablo 3 just feels like a recycled title granted to a similar game, where Torchlight feels, not like a rehash, but a legitimate sequel, with numerous, but not-too-distant changes.

I don’t care how great the actual gameplay is – I can’t see myself paying for a game that plays like on of those so-called “free MMOs”. Blizzard, Activision, or whoever thinks they are slick, treating players like suckers. They can’t have both worlds – charge people for the game AND charge people IN-GAME – that’s a total rip-off and I don’t care how much you exclaim the virtues of the game I for one will never fall for such a con.

For what you end up spending you could have given half to any free to play MMO and had all the restrictions removed for life. You pay more than that and according to Blizzard’s plans you will pay even more as time goes by – that’s crazy. The solution is not to play it in the first place – and I don’t think I will miss anything by passing it up.

While in many ways I think it is far, far too soon to weigh in on D3 as a success or not, I believe the game is immense fun and will make Blizzard a bazillion dollars. Here’s why. What your average player doesn’t understand is that D3 was never meant to be a single layer game. That’s part of the reason I was so willing to forgive launch day server issues, any gamer would expect it when you’re putting that much strain on the servers. The elephant in the room when talking about D3 isn’t D2, but World of Warcraft. WoW had 200,000 subscribers at launch, took about 3 years to reach 1 million, with something like 12 million subscribers at it’s peak. D3 moved 6.3 million units in it’s first week. That’s only units sold mind you, not including players playing on shared computers (like in Korea or China). No wonder there was a little lag the first time we all tried to log in. In addition, what you have to realize is there has ALWAYS been a real money market associated with Blizzard brand games. However, this market existed only on third party websites, which carry an obvious inherent risk. Despite this, some estimates put the profit generated by the Diablo black market as potentially equal to that generated by the game itself, with the same going for WoW. The real money auction house (which is only made possible by always online connectivity) isn’t putting something new that wasn’t there, it’s leveling the playing field for the rest of us casuals while redirecting all that black market revenue into blizzards pocket. It’s the smartest thing they’ve ever done. You can’t fight the black market, so you bring it in house. Record companies, THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE. And on top of that, like you said, the game is crack. It’s pretty and brightly colored and so, so fun. I was an avid D2 player and this is game is already consuming a disturbing amount of me and my friends lives. Combine that with the low barrier for entry for casual players, level playing field, and quality that only Blizzard is known for, we’re looking at an epoch defining moment in gaming. Blizzard hasn’t just created a game, they’ve created the first truly virtual world, with unlimited resources and endless fun. And CURRENCY. Blizzard is literally printing money. This is going to change everything.

Let me weigh in here. First, I played a lot of Diablo, and a ton of Diablo II (mostly single-player or cooperative in a private game with my brother). Diablo II was so much fun that I was still playing it up to a couple of years ago. There was no question at all that I would buy Diablo III (though I agree it was over-priced).

The only other dungeon-crawler I’ve played is Castle of the Wind, which probably doesn’t count, being so dang old.

Anyway, I love all the things you love, and am miffed, but not overly-miffed about the things you called ugly. Let me balance a bit about what you called the bad. I’m in pretty solid agreement so far about the weapon imbalance. I was excited about the enhanced crafting system, and spent some time and gold doing it for my first character, only to find what you found- that it is rarely worth it. I have, rather, found the merchants selling things that helped me out a lot, along with finding stuff (the merchants got much better as I got to a higher level). So right now for me, the merchants and loot are balanced, and crafting is not.

Secondly, you’re absolutely right about the weapons and armor and stuff just being stat enhancers. It is too bad, but you’re right. I would think my wizard would be inherently better off with a wand, as that is the weapon inherent to the class, but nope- if a sword or something gives me better stats, I equip the sword, but still fight the same way- kinda odd to me.

Where I strongly disagree with you is the boss balancing. I think they’ve nailed it. What you’ll realize when you’ve played a couple different characters (I’ve played the melee-loving monk and the wizard), is that the bosses are balanced for the different character classes. A boss that is easy for one class is very difficult for another. The Act II boss gave my monk fits (even on normal), but was a cake-walk for my wizard. Act IV boss was an easy hack-and-slash for my monk, but took a lot of strategy (using the right skills and runes) to beat with my wizard.

I agree that the control aspect of ‘online only’ is a step in the WRONG direction. The publishers also want to include an auction house for real-time purchase of items. That, in my estimation is not going to succeed. It’s either farm the unique items or be lazy and buy them from others? If the latter, than why play? I go back to the days of pinball, so I dig the competition, not the short cuts (OK, a tilt or two maybe)…Oh, and I dropped a yard on this and am not disappointed in the game or the collector’s edt. set…